New app simplifies selling stuff online

When you need something, how often do you buy it online? When you want to get rid of something, how often do you sell it online? For most people, the online marketplace is geared towards buyers. Is it really worth the time to find the best place to sell your item and then, if it does sell, package it up and make a trip to the post office? But like one-click buying, a new app aims to simplify the selling process.

Sold, a new iOS app from graduates of MIT Media Lab, does all the selling dirty work. Once you take some pictures of your item and describe it, the app uses "smart pricing analytics" to set the optimal price your item can sell for. If you decide that's a fair price, the selling process is done for you and the app lets you know when it's sold and deposits the money into your bank account. Now what about shipping (my least favorite part)? They make that easy too by sending you a free box that's pre-paid, pre-labeled, pre-insured, and, oh yeah, it's also tracked and filled with bubble wrap.

Easy, right? Yeah, but there is a catch. The app only takes "high value" items -- your iPad or designer glasses, but your books or flip phone, not so much.

And, as Fast Company reports, the app isn't trying to replace sites like Ebay or Amazon.

Like Simple for personal banking or Uber for hailing taxis, Sold is a "service layer" on top of online marketplaces that already exist. When you list an item with Sold, the app acts like a concierge that "automates a lot of the manual stuff that goes into selling something online," says cofounder and product lead Matt Blackshaw.

Download the app.

App Makes Selling Stuff Online As Easy As Buying It [Fast Company]

Image: Sold

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com